


The only person allowed to treat you like shit is me

by Legs (InsanityRule)



Category: Gotham (TV)
Genre: Escape, Future Fic, Gen, Valentine's Day Exchange, unexpected help
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-02-19
Updated: 2017-02-19
Packaged: 2018-09-25 12:48:32
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,681
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9821141
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/InsanityRule/pseuds/Legs
Summary: Ed Nygma, Riddler, certified genius, finds himself in a particularly tricky situation, and he has to use his wits to escape with his life. Or at least, that's what he assumes.





	

**Author's Note:**

> I was asked to pinch hit for the Valentine's Day exchange on tumblr, so here's my fill for @nygmobblepot-trash!

The air inside of a black fabric bag is rather stifling, but Ed thinks he’s done a bang up job at not letting himself hyperventilate so far.

He tests the zip ties on his wrists, again, just for himself, because he knows they won’t  _ actually  _ budge (really if they did he’d be disappointed at the shoddy craftsmanship of zip ties nowadays) and the pressure added to his wrists  _ hurts,  _ but gives him a point of focus, and he forgets the smell of the musty bag for just a moment while he tries to wiggle his fingers. Blood flow is important, maintaining blood flow to his extremities more so if he’s going to find a way out of this little tight spot he finds himself in, so he ignores the sting in his fingers and touches his digits to his thumb, pointer to pinkie and back again.

“Watch your head,” someone tells him, and he’s dragged out of the back of the car, four right turns and three left turns into the drive, plus six stops at what he assumes were stop signs and not lights, and his feet hit gravel, noteworthy, but also unstable, and he stumbles enough that one of his captors has to wrench his shoulder to keep him from falling. He grunts, and mutters the first twenty decimal points for pi to distract himself from the way it pulls at his wrists, the way it tugs at sore muscles in his (possibly) dislocated shoulder, and he walks, allowing himself to be led across the gravel to a sidewalk, and then from sidewalk to something wooden, and a door swings open.

There are stairs, which he’s allowed to take slowly, and two doors, and concrete, he notes the concrete under his socked feet because of the chill, and after the third door his bag is removed, and he gasps, turning quickly, squinting in the bright flourescent as his vision focuses on a few nameless goons, and Falcone.

“You’re going to spend a little time down here,” he tells Ed, gesturing to one of his men, and the zip ties are cut. “I’m feeling hospitable,” he continues, ignoring Ed’s cry of relief and his slow movements to massage feeling back into his palms, “and that means I expect you to, in return, respect my wishes that you behave yourself and stay down here while I finish up negotiations upstairs.”

He massages his right shoulder, which he’s determined is  _ not  _ dislocated (thankfully) but it  _ is  _ sore from the rough treatment. Ed licks his lips, and asks, “negotiations? With whom?” He can’t  _ possibly  _ be worth much to anyone else in Gotham, unless Falcone found out about Ed’s informants, and if that’s case, “shouldn't I be involved?”

“Mr. Cobblepot and I are going to discuss this matter  _ without  _ you,” he explains. “Once he arrives, of course. Until then, I suggest you sit tight.”

“Oswald?” Ed shakes his head. “We aren’t affiliated.” Not even  _ close _ . Oswald distinctly told Ed to “eat shit and die” the last time they came face to face, which Ed had cackled at in the moment but certainly felt the sting later, alone in his apartment with no one to gloat with aside from a few art pieces he didn’t even really  _ want _ aside from the fact that  _ Oswald  _ wanted them.

“How about you let Oswald and I handle the specifics if this is going over your head.” Falcone smiles, and Ed seethes, but he’s outnumbered and unarmed (in fact he’s almost  _ down  _ an arm) so he stays put. “It’s in your best interests to not cause any trouble. Understood?”

“Crystal clear,” Ed snarls, and he backs away a bit when one of Falcone’s men steps back towards him. He nods again, less angry, a bit of the suppressed panic from earlier bubbling up, and Falcone sends his men out, gives Ed a curt nod and a small, smug smile, and he leaves, shutting the heavy metal door behind him with a thud. Ed manages to keep himself calm until he hears heavy sound of the deadbolt sliding, then he sobs once, and backs up until he’s in the corner of the room, sliding down to the floor and pulling his legs to his chest.

Oswald isn’t here, which means he probably will  _ never  _ be here, which means he  _ won’t  _ be negotiating for Ed’s release, and really why  _ would  _ he? Ed is beyond expecting anything positive between them, not now, not after  _ everything  _ they’ve done to one another. If Ed is going to get out of this alive he needs to do it on his own.

-

He has a pencil, a multitool (small but still the most useful item from his inner pockets), two paper clips, a tie and belt, and his glasses. It isn’t the most stellar set of tools, but he’s made due with less, and Ed scours the room, searching every corner, every nook and cranny, and he comes to a few conclusions.

First, the door is steel, and heavy, and deadbolted into what appears to be concrete. He has no physical access to the deadbolt, and a damn  _ paper clip  _ is not going to flip a heavy weight tumbler aside enough to unlatch the door. He needs an alternative. He needs to  _ think _ .

Second, the room is eight feet by seven feet, according to careful measurements he’s taken with his feet, accounting for a few inches of error given the inexact measurement system he’s forced to use. The room is shorter than the average, given his ability to reach the ceiling without elevating his height to tiptoes. Seven and a half feet, maybe, or possibly less. This might prove vital.

Third, there is some sort of vent in the ceiling, which is blowing in cool, clean air, which he appreciates, but for the life of him he can’t find an actual  _ outlet  _ for the air, which makes no sense.

He switches his multitool to the screwdriver, ignoring the door and its disappointing lack of reachable screws, and begins scraping along the wall, first at the ceiling, then the middle, and then the floor. There’s no airspace under the door, and nothing along three of the walls, but the forth, oh, Ed feels such a rush of relief when his multitool punctures through a false, porous wall that he nearly cries.

Ed stabs his tool into the wall at multiple points, making a slowly widening square until he finds the edges, then he begins sawing away with the small knife in his tool, slowly, painstakingly removing the false portion of the wall until he’s revealed a recessed vent. The false wall is light and thin, and he tosses it behind him easily enough to get a better look at the vent.

It’s screwed into the wall, a problem easily remedied by the screwdriver of his tool, and he pulls the cover off and sets it aside, peering into the dark space before him and grimacing.

There’s no guarantee that it leads anywhere good, but it certainly doesn’t lead to a pit to  _ hell  _ or anything. His main concern is that he’ll find a dead end, or get stuck somewhere, and then he’ll die in a godforsaken vent, but he needs to think positively. This vent is his only chance at potential freedom, and he shoves the multitool back into his pocket before taking a deep breath and moving headfirst into the vent.

His progress is slow, hands fumbling in the dark as he makes his way into the first hurdle of the duct, a ninety degree turn to the left, and he bends, wincing as he puts weight on his hurt shoulder, but he continues on, shimmying, propelling himself forward with his feet, struggling forward with all his might because he has no other options.

(For an infinitely brief moment he’s thankful for his time in Arkham, even if all he’s ever gotten from it was the knowledge that he can and will crawl through an air duct.)

It angles up, and he feels the first tendrils of despair, but also hope, because he’s still moving, still climbing, and he stands at the junction, feeling about until he finds a second duct, just  _ barely  _ wide and tall enough for his person, but he’ll take what he can get admittedly, so Ed hoists himself up into the next leg of vents and climbs, and climbs, and slowly he begins to see light. He laughs, elated, overwhelmed, and he pulls himself up out of the second set of vertical vents and to another flat space, crawling towards the light, elbows and knees propelling him forward faster than before, and he reaches a grate.

The screws are on the outside.

Ed rattles the grate, then he rattles it harder, despair clawing up his throat, making his eyes water. He bites his lip to keep from crying out in frustration, but it’s difficult, and he bangs on the grate, uncaring if his attempts are heard, because he’s still just as trapped as he was before.

He shakes it again, grunting with the effort of trying to pry the screws out of the wall, and a single slat gives way. Ed gapes, then he rushes to get out his multitool, frantic, hacking at the slats and reaching through the holes to unscrew the grate, laughing with relief and joy, and when he pushes forward and the grate falls out he really does feel like he could cry.

Just as abruptly as he’s claimed his freedom someone grabs him by the hair and  _ pulls _ , dragging him out of the vent, and he has no choice but to follow, but he can still  _ fight,  _ struggling and scratching at the hand, then, abruptly, there’s a gunshot, and he freezes, breathing heavily, searching the ground for blood or gore, but he finds none. He also doesn’t find his glasses, which went flying during the struggle, until he’s tugged forward and feels them underfoot, not hard enough to crack them, but enough to snap one of the temples, and he sobs brokenly, but he says nothing. He has no hope to negotiate. He never had any leverage from the start.

“I’d say timing isn’t one of his better skills,” Falcone comments.

Ed squints in the open room, possibly a warehouse, but he can’t be sure, and he can make out the blurry shape of Falcone and his goons, and, “Oswald?”

“I trust his little stunt isn’t going to change anything about our deal,” Oswald says mildly.

“I’m fairly certain the only thing he’s managed to damage is his pride,” Falcone says.

“And his glasses,” Oswald adds. He steps closer, and Ed tries to back up to get away, but the hand in his hair keeps him in place. “You’re rather  _ jumpy  _ right now Eddie.”

“Oz-” he gulps, and tries to clear his throat. He realizes he has no concept of how long he was crawling around in the vents, but the sun is setting, and he is suddenly,  _ acutely  _ aware of how exhausted he feels. Oswald taps Ed’s food with the tip of his cane, and Ed lifts his foot, revealing the damage done to his glasses, which isn’t as bad as it could be (the temple snapped at the hinge) but he can’t wear then like this either.

“Just sit tight,” he says, patting Ed’s cheek, and he looks over to the goon gripping Ed’s hair. “Don Falcone this is hardly necessary. Ed here is going to be the picture of cooperation, aren’t you Ed.”

“Oswald,” Ed whispers urgently, “you shouldn’t be making a deal with Falcone, please, think about-”

“I suggest  _ you  _ think about being a bit more  _ gracious  _ towards the person saving your  _ hide _ , right now, Ed, so you just shut that mouth of yours. Be. Quiet. Please.” He smiles and turns back to Falcone. “Don’t put too much weight into his blathering. He’s  _ obviously  _ distressed.”

“Just be sure to keep him out of my deals, Penguin,” Falcone says. “Or next time there won’t be any negotiations.”

“You are as gracious as you are experienced, Don Falcone,” Oswald does a little bow and Falcone waves to his man. Ed gasps as his hair’s released and scrambles to grab his glasses from the ground, cradling them near his chest. “You. Get in my car,  _ now _ ,” he tells Ed, and Ed nods fast, following when Oswald beckons him.

Oswald’s driver holds the door for the both of them, and Ed crawls into the back, taking a moment to look at the ruined hinge of his glasses before deeming them a lost cause and setting them on the seat next to him. Oswald gets in beside him and breathes deeply the moment his back hits the fine leather seats, then he looks at Ed, watching him as he buckles in and moves so he’s sitting sideways, back to the window and head resting on the back of the seat. Ed grabs both of his elbows and hugs himself, trying to preemptively formulate answers to the questions Oswald is sure to ask.

“Why aren’t you wearing any shoes?” He asks, and Ed chuckles to himself.

“I was at home,” he says, “working on getting ready to  _ leave _ .” He gestures to the rest of his green suit, which is rumpled and dirty after the manhandling and crawling about in vents. “They didn’t let me grab them. I think they preferred I not have any advantages, although his men are getting sloppy.”

“Don’t tell  _ him  _ that. If you’re able tell me exactly  _ which  _ men are sloppy so I can begin worming away at his support.”

Ed nods, then he blinks, “why?”

“Well the damn bastard’s been far too uppity and demanding now that he’s “unretired” and Barbara isn’t doing a damn thing to ping away at his influence, so I suppose it’s up to me,  _ again _ , to take back control.” He smiles at Ed, briefly, and then he asks, “why?”

“I meant, why are you trusting me?”  _ Why did you come get me at all?  _ He thinks, and Oswald must understand what he wants to actually ask, because he groans and puts his head in his hands.

“Edward Nygma, you’re a damn mess without me. You realize this, don’t you? You crawled out of an exhaust vent in the  _ middle of my negotiations _ , and do you know what surprised me the most? The fact that  _ no one else was surprised. _ Somehow the unpredictable is predictable with you, and it’s going to get you killed one of these days if everyone knows what you’re planning to do.” That… does sound like a potential hiccup to his future plans. The car starts, and Ed takes a moment to reassure himself that the driver is in fact Gabe and not one of Falcone’s men. Oswald takes a moment to tell him, “drive to my home, please.”

“So I’m walking to mine?” he asks.

“You’re coming to  _ mine _ ,” Oswald tells him, “because you look like you swam in a lake, and you smell like musty clothes. And it’s never too early to get a head start on becoming more unpredictable.”

“Thank you,” he says, for the rescue, the negotiations, for  _ this _ , whatever it entails. He closes his eyes, letting himself lean more heavily against the back of the seat. “I have informants,” he tells Oswald. “In his ranks. Small, but they tell me important information. Details about deals, that sort of thing.”

“You have informants in his gang?”

“I have informants in  _ most  _ gangs,” he says.  _ Not yours _ , he thinks. He’s done all the legwork for Oswald’s plans himself. “They’re quite useful.”

“Well, if you telling me about them is an offer to  _ share _ , than I accept.” He taps Ed on the arm, and he opens his eyes, shaking his head a little, and when he finds the hand outstretched he takes it and gives Oswald an admittedly flimsy shake, but when he tries to hold on just a second longer, Oswald doesn't pull away, and Ed closes his eyes again, hanging onto Oswald’s hand and, less literally, this tentative team up they’ve formed.


End file.
